North Dakota

CONSUMER BENEFITS:

• Like all Americans, consumers in North Dakota pay 22 percent less for sugar than consumers in other developed countries*.

• When sugar prices plunged by almost 20 percent during 1996 - 2004, injuring producers, industrial sugar users and retail grocers did not pass the savings onto consumers.

• North Dakota consumers rely on a strong beet sugar industry in their state to supply this essential food ingredient.

TAXPAYER BENEFITS: The U.S. sugar program is designed and intended to operate at no cost to American taxpayers.

JOBS: 13,202 jobs* in North Dakota are a portion of the 372,228 jobs nationwide that rely on a strong U.S. sweetener industry.

ECONOMIC IMPACT: $1,061,300,000 in economic activity is generated in the state of North Dakota each year by the U.S. sugar and corn sweetener industries*. As part of the national sweetener industry, North Dakota is one of the 42 states that help create $21.1 billion in economic activity.

SUGARBEET INDUSTRY: 1,250 growers produce over 5 million tons of beets from 197,000 acres. There are three sugarbeet processing facilities: Crookston, East Grand Forks and Moorhead (MN), and Drayton and Hillsboro, owned by American Crystal Sugar Co., a farmer-owned cooperative, and the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative, which is located in Wahpeton.

CORN SWEETENER INDUSTRY: Corn refiners add $12,900,000 to the value of the corn crop from North Dakota's corn farmers as a result of the corn refining industry*. The added demand for corn benefits each of the 2,328 farms that raise 930,000 acres of corn in North Dakota. About 760,000,000 bushels of corn nationwide each year are used for making sweetener. This represents over 8 percent of the U.S. corn crop.

EFFICIENT PRODUCERS: More than 100 countries produce sugar and American producers are among the most efficient. More than half of the world's sugar is produced at a higher cost than in the U.S.

A MAJOR IMPORTER: The U.S. is the fourth largest net importer of sugar in the world. The WTO and NAFTA trade agreements require the U.S. to import sugar from 41 countries, about 15 percent of our market, whether we need the foreign sugar or not.

RESPONDING TO PREDATORY FOREIGN TRADE PRACTICES: Virtually every sugar exporting country dumps its surplus onto the world market at prices below any country's cost of production. Until these unfair foreign trade practices are addressed we must maintain a domestic sugar policy that responds to these predatory practices.

U.S. SWEETENER POLICY BENEFITS AMERICA

* SOURCES:  American Sugarbeet Growers, 2009.

"RETAIL PRICES OF SUGAR AROUND THE WORLD IN 2002," LMC INTERNATIONAL LTD., February 2003.

"THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUGAR AND CORN SWEETENER INDUSTRY TO THE U.S. ECONOMY,"
LMC INTERNATIONAL LTD., August 2001.

USDA